Canon City News

Starpoint home visits offer support to Fremont County families

Services include screenings, information and activities at home

Alan Piquette, 3, and his mom, Vicki Piquette, right, enjoy looking a book and other activities with their home visitor, Betz Reitz, during a visit in September. (Carie Canterbury / Daily Record)

Editor's Note: This is the second story in a series that will highlight Starpoint. The organization is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

For the past 40 years, Starpoint has offered a number of programs and services that benefit community members of all ages and demographics.

Starpoint Children's Services, just one arm of this multi-faceted organization, offers three home visitation programs that provide support and education to families in Fremont County. The programs serve a variety of different families, including teenage parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, foster families, and single- and two-parent families. There were 11 home visitors who served 234 families in 2016.

Home visitors bring information and activities to each visit and they offer developmental, hearing, vision and social/emotional screenings in the home.

First Steps Early Head Start is a federally funded program that provides weekly one-and-a-half hour visits to families who are income eligible. Home visitors serve prenatal to age 3.

First Steps Parents As Teachers is a universal-access program that offers monthly and bi-monthly visits, serving prenatal to age 5. There are no income guidelines.

The third program is the Colorado Community Response Grant offered in partnership with the Department of Human Services. This is for families who have been screened out by DHS but may still need support as a way to help prevent abuse and neglect. This program is available to families with children up to age 18 on a referral basis.

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Home visitors also greet parents with newborns at the hospital to present them with information, and they are trained to provide postpartum support for new moms who sign up for services.

Betz Reitz has worked for Starpoint for more than 10 years, nine of which has been as a home visitor.

"For strangers to invite you into their home, and want to have you be part of the process, is so empowering to me, and my prayer is it's empowering to them," she said. "It is an enriching opportunity."

Reitz, a former home daycare provider and teacher, has been a home visitor for the Jeff and Vicki Piquette family since 2010. The family takes part in the First Steps Parents As Teachers program.

"I consider it such a privilege to be invited into these homes, to be part of their journey,and I never take that for granted," Reitz said. "This is such a rewarding experience to be able to share in the celebrations of their growth, but also be there to encourage and support and undergird the challenges."

Jeff Piquette is the Dean of Education at Colorado State University-Pueblo and Vicki Piquette teaches college classes at night. The couple has four biological children and four foster children, all ranging in age from 7 months to 12 years. Their biological children are 3, 6, 9 and 12 years old.

"(The home visits) have given me a different perspective on how to do things, how to use household stuff to really encourage development and education and to push them a little bit further," Vicki Piquette said. "It also gives another set of eyes because I am more subjective when it comes to my kids, and (Reitz) has a more objective view to make sure where my kids are supposed to be."

Reitz serves five of the children in the home, having to make two visits a month. Piquette doesn't tell the kids until the day of the visit that Reitz is coming because otherwise they can't contain their excitement.

"She's just part of our family," Piquette said.

Parents as Teachers now organize in advance what they are going to do for the next visit, and the parents provide what they have for supplies, undergirding the idea of "working with what you've got, rather than bringing in everything and then taking it away," Reitz said.

Reitz said it's also rewarding to know that when the children move on to school, they have had a wealth of preparation.

For more information on these programs, call 719-275-0550 or stop by the Fremont County Family Center at 1339 Elm Ave.

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